The present disclosure relates to information collection and presentation. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to printer configuration information collection and presentation.
Many office devices such as printers, copiers and multifunction devices (e.g., a single device capable of scanning, printing, faxing and/or copying) are capable of producing a configuration page. The configuration page lists various pieces of information related to the individual device such as printer controller information, scanner configuration, types of media being used in the device, usage statistics, and other related information. The configuration page may also contain licensing information such as, in the case of a leased device, how many hours has the device been used. When operational problems or issues arise, this information is often vital in diagnosing and solving the problem.
In general, the configuration page is only available in a printed form. Typically, a user may have to go to the device and instruct the device to print its current configuration page. Alternatively, the user may remotely request the device print the configuration page, and the user physically goes to the device to obtain the printed copy. Some devices allow a user to access configuration information remotely via a specialized user interface (UI) or set of web pages. This information is generally unsorted and may cover many pages. When searching for a specific piece of information, such as any recent changes in configuration of the device, the user may spend several hours searching the multiple pages of information to find the piece they are interested in. When trying to debug a device that is malfunctioning, the hours taken to find a specific piece of information related to the problem causing the malfunction may result in considerable lost productivity time for an office relying on the device.
Recently, many businesses are striving to be more “green” or environmentally friendly. Typical green businesses try to reduce wasted paper and wasted worker production by eliminating worker downtime. Typical solutions for obtaining device configuration pages do not conform to typical green standards as printing multiple configuration pages wastes a great deal of paper.